A novel algorithm for point-target detection based on third-order cumulant in infrared image

A novel algorithm based on third-order cumulant is proposed to detect a dim moving point target in IR image sequences with heavy background clutter. Based on the fact that the grey-scale value of a pixel in temporal profiles occurs fluctuation when a target passes by, this fluctuation can be viewed as a non-Gaussian weak transient signal, and its third-order cumulant is estimated as the detection statistic used in the hypothesis testing procedure on individual pixel temporal profiles. The computation simulations and numerical results show that the algorithm can effectively suppress heavy infrared background clutter and reliably detect dim targets with signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) larger than 1.